I am astounded. “He triumphed? Again? And everything is turned around in a moment?”

“In a frightened heartbeat,” Nan says. “That is how this king keeps his power for year after year.”

“So what happens now?” I ask.

“Stephen Gardiner and Thomas Howard will have to humble their pride and beg pardon of the archbishop and of the king. They have fallen from favor.”

I shake my head in wonderment. It is like a traveler’s tale, a fairy tale, filled with sudden reverses of fortune and magical triumphs.

“And Thomas Cranmer will hold an inquiry into all the people who thought they were going to arrest and execute him, and if there are letters that reveal treason or heresy, they will find themselves in the Tower waiting for the scaffold, in his place.”

“And now we are on the rise,” Nan crows. “And reform will go on. We’ll get the Bible back into the churches, we will be allowed to read books on reform, we’ll get the Word of God to the people and the dogs of Rome can go back to hell.”

* * *

The king is planning a great Christmas feast. “Everyone will attend,” he says exuberantly. The pain in his leg has eased, the wound is still open but it is not weeping so copiously. I think that it smells less. I mask the stink with pockets of perfumes and spices scattered around my rooms, even tucked into my bed, the scent of roses overlaying the haunting odor of decay. The summer of riding and traveling has rested him, he hunts every day, all day—even if he is only standing in a hide as they drive the beasts towards him. We have a lighter dinner than when he is in his great hall twice a day with twenty, thirty different dishes being brought in, and he is even drinking less wine.

“Everyone,” he says, “every ambassador in Christendom will come to Hampton Court. They all want to see my beautiful new wife.”

I smile and shake my head. “I shall be shy,” I say. “I don’t like to feel that all eyes are on me.”

“You have to endure it,” he says. “Better still, learn to enjoy it. You are the greatest woman in the kingdom: learn to revel in it. There are plenty who would take it from you if they could.”

“Oh, I’m not so shy that I would rather stand aside,” I confess.

“Good,” he says, catching up my hand and kissing it. “For I am not disposed to let you go. I want no pretty new girl pushed into your place.” He laughs. “They dangle papist poppets before me, did you know? All this summer on progress they have been introducing pretty daughters with crucifixes at their necks and rosaries at their belts and missals in Latin in their pockets. Did you not notice?”